With my son’s favourite painting tool being the cotton-bud and my favourite flowers being hydrangeas we decided to combine these to make some lovely flowery Mother’s Day Cards.

Equipment;

For the painting bit:

Plastic activity mat/old towel.
Aprons/painting clothes.
Paper plates.
Pastel colour paints (water based Non-toxic).
Cotton buds.
Elastic hair bands.
White cards.

For the decoration bit:

Piece of card.
Pencil.
Scissors.
Felt tip pens.
Pastel coloured craft foam sheets.
Double sided sticky tape.

Step 1: Preparation.

Put activity mat on floor or table. Put out your paints (I used pastel blue, purple and pink), paper plates and cards. Tie a bunch of cotton buds together, I did this using an elastic hair band but you could use tape/elastic bands etc and add these to your painting area.

Step 2: Flower painting and paint swirling!

I dipped the bunches of cotton buds into the paint and showed my son how they made the marks on the card. I then let him have fun mixing the colours and making lovely flowers on the cards. After doing this he decided he wanted to use the cotton buds to mix up the paints into lovely swirly colours so it turned into a bit of messy play/sensory exploration at the end!

Step 3: Tidy tidy tidy up!

Put your cards aside to dry. As with the sheep cards from the last post most of the things used in this activity are not reusable so it was a quick tidy, wipe down the mat and then bath time!

Step 4: Flower decorating.

I did a variety of things for these cards depending on how the marks ended up on the card so you really can mix and match. For some of them I drew around my son’s hand on some card then used this as a template to cut out foam fingers which we stuck onto the cards with double sided sticky tape to look like stems of flowers.

I also cut out foam shaped flower pots to stick on the cards (again using double sided sticky tape as this is easier for my son at the moment but you could use PVA glue). I used the flower pots as the area to write “Mum” or whatever you wish to write with felt tip pens.

To give the flowers a bit more definition I drew round them with felt tip pens of the same colour, I also drew little leaves in random places to fill out the space.

And there you go some lovely flower cards to give to your MAMA’s for Mother’s Day!

Don’t forget to share any of your MAMA creations on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and keep checking the blog for new ideas http://www.megaawesomemessyart.com

With Mother’s Day coming up I thought this was a perfect opportunity to try out some new mark-making tools and create some lovely cards for all of those special MAMA’s out there!

Equipment;

For the painting bit;

– Activity mat/old towels for floor or table.
– Old painting clothes or aprons.
– Paper plates.
– Clothes pegs.
– Cotton wool balls (& Pom-poms).
– White paint (water based, non-toxic).
– Coloured card.
– Pencil.

For the decorating bit;

– Scissors.
– Pens – permanent markers/felt tips.
– Black, craft foam sheets.
– Ribbon/bows.
– Stick on goggly eyes.
– Double sided sticky tape (could use PVA glue if preferred).

Step 1: Preparation.

Compared to other MAMA activities this one does not need that much preparation so it is a quick one to do if you don’t have too much spare time. I put the activity mat on table (could use floor), clipped the cotton wool balls onto the pegs and then put the paper plates/paint tubes and card on the table and we were ready to go.

Step 2: Cotton wool sheep painting time!

So my son had an area to aim for with the white paint we drew around our hands on the card with pencil and I made it look like a sheep by adding a head so he understood what we were trying to make. You could just draw a circle but we always like to practice drawing round hands!

I then let my son squeeze the white paint onto the paper plates and showed him how to dip the cotton wool ball/peg combo into it and make splodges onto the handprints. He then copied and I just pulled the card away when enough was on there. Whilst doing this my son noticed some of his Pom-poms in the painting box so we tried using these to make the splodges too – they worked really nicely and actually made a cleaner circle mark than the cotton wool balls. So I’d advise using some Pom-poms too!

Step 3: Experimentation time!

As white paint isn’t exactly very exciting for little ones who are used to lots of colour, I got out some other colour paints for my son to squeeze and paint with – once we’d made the nice white sheep cards first!

Step 4: Tidy tidy tidy up!

Compared to other MAMA activities this was not as messy however as we have always had a bath after our MAMA activities we had one anyway! There was also not as much to tidy as the cotton wool and Pom-poms were not really reusable so all that was needed was a wipe down of the activity mat!

Step 5: Creating the sheep!

If there are any visible pencil marks then rub these out.

Draw a sheep head and two legs onto the black craft foam and cut them out. Stick two goggly eyes onto the head. I then put double sided sticky tape (my new best friend!) on the backs of the head, legs and a bow and my son stuck them onto the white paint splodges (with a bit of guidance).

Next use a felt tip/permanent marker pen
to write “I Love Ewe Ma-Maa” or “I Love Ewe Grand-Maa” onto the cards……and there you go, you have some cute, funny mother’s day cards!!

Don’t forget to share any MAMA creations you make on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and keep an eye out for another Mother’s Day Card idea coming soon. http://www.megaawesomemessyart.com